How to Clean a Mattress

The rule that governs everything below: never soak a mattress. Water that gets into the fillings does not come out, and a damp core grows mould you cannot reach. Blot, do not pour.

The routine, every few months

1. Strip the bed and vacuum the whole surface with the upholstery tool, seams and border included.
2. Rotate it head to foot.
3. Stand it on its side for an hour so the underside dries out — particularly on a solid platform base.
4. Air the room while you do it.

That is most of mattress care. Everything else is dealing with accidents.

Stains, by type

Blood

Cold water only. Hot water sets the protein and the mark becomes permanent. Blot with cold water and a little washing-up liquid, working inward from the edge of the stain. For a dried mark, a paste of bicarbonate of soda and cold water, left twenty minutes and vacuumed off, lifts a surprising amount.

Urine

Blot up as much as possible first, pressing with a dry towel — do not rub. Then an enzyme cleaner, which digests the proteins rather than masking them. Apply lightly, leave fifteen minutes, blot dry, then bicarbonate of soda overnight and vacuum. Enzyme cleaners are the only thing that removes the smell rather than covering it.

Sweat and yellowing

Bicarbonate of soda over the whole panel, left a few hours, vacuumed off. For the discolouration itself, a light mist of one part white vinegar to two parts water, blotted, then dried thoroughly. It will lighten, not disappear.

Mould on the underside

This is a ventilation problem, not a cleaning one. Treat the cause — slats instead of a solid board, a spacer mat, standing it up regularly. If mould has got into the fillings rather than sitting on the ticking, the mattress is finished; no cleaning method reaches inside a mattress.

Never do these

• Steam cleaning. It drives moisture into the fillings, which is the one thing you are trying to avoid.
• Bleach. Damages fibres and does not come out.
• Putting a removable cover in a hot wash. Most are 30 or 40 °C. Hotter and it shrinks, and it will never go back on.
• Tumble drying a cover. Same reason.
• Remaking the bed while anything is damp.

The thing worth knowing about guarantees

Across the industry — ours included — a stained mattress is the most common reason a guarantee claim is refused. Not because anyone is looking for an excuse, but because a stain makes it impossible to assess and impossible to handle. A protector costs less than a takeaway and removes the argument entirely.

Common questions

Can I use a carpet cleaner?

No. They are designed to inject and extract water, and a mattress cannot be extracted.

Do I need to kill dust mites?

Washing the bedding weekly at 60 °C does more than anything you can do to the mattress itself.

Is a professional mattress clean worth it?

For a surface mark, no. For contamination through the fillings, no cleaner can reach it — that is a replacement.